Other Worlds Were Possible, page 22
Sunny had no idea what Father Ralph was speaking about, so he had no idea how to respond.
“You don’t understand?... I see... Now, that’s because you only live for the present. You fail to understand that this world exists to test us; to prepare us for a future life in heaven. We must work hard in this life, to save our souls in the next.
“As for the work itself… Dear child of Christ, that’s secondary. Everyone has a place in God’s master-plan. The Lord cares just as much for the lowly carpenter, as he does for his priests and politicians. What matters is that you submit. Submit to hard work. Submit to the will of God. Forgo your leisure-based society, and commit to a work-based society. Submit! Surrender your mortal body, and save your eternal soul.”
Sunny paused, to allow his mind to catch up with his ears, before focussing on a single word: Heaven. He had been thinking of that place, ever since Father Ralph had mentioned it at the Big Camp. But he still had far more questions than answers:
“So, you have to work hard to get into this heaven, even if it destroys the earth?”
“Yes. Hard work is the ticket! It’ll open the door to paradise.”
“I see… And do you still have to do this ‘Hard work’ once you’re actually in heaven?”
“No.”
“Oh… Is there any work in heaven?”
“No. None whatsoever.”
“What about money? Is there money in heaven?”
Father Ralph shook his head.
“No. There’s no money in heaven.”
“Oh… What about land rights?”
“No. There are no land rights in heaven. There’s no land.”
“So, there’s no work, money or land rights?”
“Correct.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
Father Ralph nodded.
“So, why can’t it be a good thing on earth?… I’m telling you: Our tribes-folk are already in this heaven of yours. We don’t have any work or money… And… Well, we just wish to remain in this heaven, and preserve it for our descendants… Surely, we can come to an arrangement… It’s just… I don’t understand: Why do you want us to change our ways? Why do you want us to abandon our heaven?”
Father Ralph clutched his hair:
“Because you haven’t earned it! You’re stealing it!... No, no, that’s not it at all… God bless you, dear child of Christ. You’re not in heaven. What a dang notion! You’re in the mortal realm, living the most ungodly existence.”
Father Ralph looked to Hernan, who closed his eyes, in that blissful way of his, before making a speech which seemed to contain a large number of ostentatious words.
Father Ralph did his best to translate:
“By Jove, that’s exactly it. Spot on! The Colonial Company has an… Umm… A Royal Charter from the king. This charter grants the company, ‘The soils of all lands, countries and territories to be discovered… With the full power to dispose of every part… According to the order of the laws of the fatherland’. And a jolly good thing that is too. Amen to that! A thousand times amen.
“So, you see, this grant allows Hernan here to survey unowned land, map it out, turn it into the state’s territory, divide it into blocks, and transform it into private property, which the company can use itself or sell on to individual citizens.
“It’s the company’s land. It’s not your land. You’re stealing this land and you’re stealing a living. It’s against the will of the king, and it’s against the will of the Lord.”
Now it was Sunny who clasped his hair.
“Who or what is this ‘King’?”
“The king is our leader.”
“You mean… Umm… Like a sort of representative?”
“You could say that.”
“Or a chief?”
“Yes! God bless you, that’s it! The king is like a chief.”
Sunny had heard of chiefs. Serenity had spoken to him about the Distant Tribes, who appointed those ceremonial leaders, although Sunny had never met one himself. He supposed they were a bit like a chairperson; the individual who oversaw their Tribal Council. The only difference was that chiefs could be given gifts. They might keep those gifts for a while, and accrue more possessions than anyone else. But then they hosted “Potlatches”, to give those gifts away. And they held feasts; sharing their food with everyone else. The inequality never lasted for long.
This king sounded different from those chiefs. He sounded more like an Uncle Crow; someone who hoarded gifts forever, and wielded power over the group.
“So, it was this Chief King who told you to leave your homes, take other people’s homes, endure work, and force work upon others?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you just call him a nincompoop?”
“Excuse me? Call him… Call him a ‘Nincompoop’?... What a… What a dang notion!”
“It’s just… Sometimes we come across people like your Chief King. We call them ‘Uncle Crows’; these people who get too big for their loincloths. When they appear, we mock them, to keep them humble; to put them back in their rightful place. We say they’re a bug-faced nutty-nut, or a crow who thinks they’re a peacock. They lose our respect. And because they aren’t respected, they don’t have any leverage. They cannot tell us what to do.
“Why don’t you do something like that with your Chief King? You know… To push him back into his shell?”
“Because… Because he’d put you in chains! He’d have you tortured and killed!”
“Oh golly! What a brute!… Okay then, why don’t you meet violence with violence? Why don’t you kill this Chief King?... You know, I once heard of a chief who hoarded her people’s fish. Do you know what her people did? They killed her! It was as simple as that. Then everything returned to normal... Her successors made sure not to make the same mistake. Whenever someone caught a whale, those chiefs said: ‘Cut it up and take whatever you like. I’ll make do with the scraps.’ They only held onto their chiefdoms by being humbler than everyone else in their tribe.”
Father Ralph was speechless.
“Or, if you cannot kill this Chief King, you could at least send her into exile… You could disobey, criticise, depose or desert her. Then you’d all be free.”
Father Ralph finally found his voice; speaking so sharply, and so suddenly, that his words merged into a scream:
“But he’s our king! Our majestic majesty! We’re his humble servants. Jesus, Abraham and Moses! This is what’s so wrong with you freedom-loving savages. You’ve got no respect for your betters.”
Sunny had never heard of a “Better”.
“Oh… But… Hang on for as long as it takes a leaf to fall… I thought you follow this ‘God’ fellow. Upon Mother Nature’s good face: Why do you care so much about this Chief King?”
Father Ralph almost jolted out of his skin. His eyes pushed outwards, and his shoulders bucked upwards, as though attempting to flee from their sockets.
This response did not last for long.
Father Ralph underwent a strange and unexpected transformation: His face softened. His veins stopped throbbing. His eyes appeared to be both bigger and smaller than before:
“By Jove, I do believe I understand your confusion. The likes of Hernan and myself may appear to be worlds apart. He serves the king, whilst I serve the Lord. He cares for land, commerce, production; all that’s material. I care for the church, souls, salvation; all that’s spiritual.
“But, dear child of Christ, there’s really no contradiction. The state and the church are united... You see, the king is the ‘Chief’ of both institutions. He’s God’s representative on earth, with a divine right to rule. Yes, that’s it: God and the king are a team.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s the undisputed word of God! My blessed child: You must think of the Lord as your father. He’s father to all mankind. And you must think of the king as your father. He’s father to our nation.”
“What’s a ‘Father’?”
“A parent.”
“A mother?”
“Yes, but male.”
“Oh… A male mother?”
Father Ralph nodded.
Sunny pinched his ears. Father Ralph had mentioned something similar, back at the Big Camp. But Sunny was still struggling to grasp the concept:
“It’s just… Well, men don’t give birth.”
Father Ralph ignored this remark:
“The king is our parent and guardian. He loves and protects us, on God’s behalf.
“Now, where was I?... Ah, yes: So when we say that the king wills this land to become the state’s territory, and then private property; we’re actually saying that God wills it. The king is speaking on God’s behalf.
“And no, we cannot just kill the king. That’d be like killing God himself. Heaven forbid! Our souls would suffer in eternal damnation.”
Sunny did not know whether to frown or giggle.
“You believe this?”
“I do.”
“But… Well, it’s awfully convenient, isn’t it? Someone bosses you about… They say: ‘Take other people’s land’, ‘Enslave yourself to work’, ‘When you make four pots, let me keep three’, ‘You’ll suffer in eternal damnation if you refuse’… And then, if you question any of it, they say it’s not what they want, it’s what Chief God wants… I mean, come on! You’re yanking our penises.”
“Excuse me?”
“Chief King is mocking you. She’s ripping the loincloth from your…”
Sunny stopped himself short, once he realised what he was doing: Insulting the very people he was supposed to be courting.
“Oh… I am Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sure we could set this straight. There’s always a way. I’ll just need to speak to Chief King myself; to go directly to the source of the river… Please could you introduce me?”
This time it was Father Ralph and Hernan who broke out in fits of laughter:
“Hehe hoho haha… What a dang notion! You?… You!... Go to… No! You cannot be serious!... You?... A savage? You wish to speak to his majestic majesty? Ha! What a jape! What tomfoolery and monkeyshine! Hallelujah! I’ve heard it all.”
It took a little while for them to realise that Sunny was serious, and a little longer before Sunny deigned to explain:
“Well… No, I don’t get it... In our culture, people make decisions together. Things only get done, if everyone agrees… Now, I understand that your Chief King makes decisions on behalf of everyone else, like a male mother with a child. But how does she… How does he know what those people want, if they don’t meet her… him… to discuss their needs?”
Father Ralph smiled:
“Because God tells him!”
“Oh, I see. Well then, please can you ask Chief God to tell Chief King that we want to remain on our land; without any of this money, work and hoarding?”
“Ah, my dear child of Christ. God already knows what you want. And he also knows what you need. That’s why he sent us. So we can give you the one thing you truly need: The bible!”
Sunny nodded:
“Okay. Well, I’d still like to come to an understanding; to create a proposal which I could take back to our clan. A sort of agreement to share.
“It’s like… When a hungry ant asks for food, by wiggling its antennae, the nearest ant will open its mandibles, and regurgitate fluid for that ant to eat. If an ant refused to share their food, they’d be treated as an enemy. They’d be attacked by their sisters and brothers… When a sparrow finds food, she doesn’t keep it to herself. She shares it with the other sparrows.
“I tell you: Sharing is the natural order of things. We’re put on this earth to share.
“When other clans pass through, we share our land with them. We allow them to hunt our animals, gather our plants, and sleep with our mothers and uncles.
“We’d be happy to share our land with you.
“We aren’t even against private ownership. Our tribes-folk own their beads. It’s just… Well, we expect people to share the things they own. If a person tried to stop someone else from using something, then we’d have a problem. We’d accuse them of selfishness and greed. We’d say their evil wolf had eaten their good wolf.
“But it doesn’t have to come to that…
“If you must plant lots of stuff, I think we could come to accept that. We’ll do whatever we can to heal Mother Nature. But we should still be able to gather those plants, to share them, without living in fear of your punishments.
“Does that sound okay? You can grow whatever you like, and we won’t do a punishment on you. But you cannot steal that food from us. You must allow us to gather the vegetables you grow, without attacking us.”
Hernan and Father Ralph frowned in unison. For a moment, it appeared that they were sharing a single eyebrow; a wide, furry thing, which stretched from one side of one face, to the opposite side of the other; becoming straighter, and rising higher, the longer Sunny spoke.
This illusion was only broken when they turned inwards, to face each other.
Father Ralph waited for Hernan, and Hernan waited for Father Ralph. Hernan only responded, somewhat begrudgingly, once he acknowledged that Father Ralph had lost the ability to speak.
He sighed, paused, and looked into his companion’s eyes; before making a proposal, which the missionary translated; omitting a few of Hernan’s words, and adding a few of his own:
“My brother in Christ: Look around you. This land is our land. It’s been mapped! It’s sovereign territory, holy territory, and you’re nothing but illegal squatters.
“Look at the buildings! Look at the plantations! Look at these horses and guns.
“God bless you, poor innocent child. Can’t you see that you’re in no position to bargain?
“And yet, we’re good people. We’re here on a holy mission, to bring you out of the darkness. We wish you no harm. In the name of Jesus Christ: We’ve come to save you from harm. We’ve come to save you from yourselves!
“So yes, we’ll offer you an alternative: You can have a portion of land. It’ll be your own private property, to use as you please. That’s right: You can still live in your primitive huts, and hold your little meetings. So long as you don’t break the king’s laws, your lifestyles will barely change. You’ll be an ‘Aeque Principali’; an autonomous protectorate, under company and king.
“Our holy soldiers will protect you from outsiders, and our constables will protect you from your own ne’er-do-wells. You’ll be given the deeds to your land, for the first time since Adam met Eve. Official documents, kept in the capital, shall declare that the land is yours.
“But you must earn the rights to that land, by paying a ‘Tithe’ to the Company. Amen, that’s correct. Each year… By the beginning of each winter solstice… You must produce things with a certain value, which you must pay… Which you must gift to the crown.
“I suggest you produce grain. It’s durable, portable, divisible and quantifiable. Everyone can see what you’ve produced and what you owe, without cause for argument or complaint. But that decision will be yours alone. See: You can still play parliament, if that’s what floats your boat.
“We can even loan you some seeds and machines, to help you on your way. I expect it won’t take long for you to repay the debt, and produce a surplus which you can trade for a profit. You’ll be able to buy stuff like the things you see around us: Horses, buildings and clothes. You’ll be rich! You’ll see the value of hard work, and it’ll bring you closer to God.”
Sunny titled his head.
“Not sure?... Yes, it’s an awful lot to digest… But, my brother in Christ: You must trust me when I say that this is a tried and tested model… Did you ever notice how a couple of clans disappeared from your Big Camp?... Yes?... By Jove, they saw the light and answered Jesus’s call! They accepted an identical offer. And, whilst it’s early days, it seems that they’re happier now than ever before. You can visit them, if you like, and see for yourself.”
Sunny’s head shifted backwards, but his neck remained fixed in position.
“They’re farming? They’re doing… work… Every day of every lunar-cycle?”
Father Ralph nodded.
“Really?”
“Indeed.”
“Oh… And they don’t seem to mind?”
“Not at all. Hard work sets you free!”
DREAM ON
Sunny had performed a one-man play; re-enacting the conversation with Hernan and Father Ralph. But he was struggling to gauge a reaction.
“Well, that’s about it. I went, I saw, I concluded. I said I’d find an alternative solution, and here you have it. I tell you this: We don’t need to fight or flee. We can be masters of our own protectorate, so long as we gift a tithe.
“What do you think?”
Sunny panned around the circle…
He looked at Pilgrim; a woman who had joined them five seasons before, after falling out with her clan. Sunny had liked her immediately, because she had the same greying ringlets as one of his favourite aunts.
He looked at Buffalo; an adolescent who was attending his first ever meeting. His eyes were like shallow pools. They revealed his real age. Perhaps he was too young to participate in such a discussion. But these were singular times, when customs bent like the grass.
And he looked at the older women, who were squatting in an identical manner, lined up in a perfect row. Viewed from one end, with a single glance, it was impossible to tell them apart. Their fleshy thighs repeated themselves, over and over again. But take a step to the side, and the differences were unmistakable. Each was so extraordinary, it would have been impossible to make them more unique.
A few hillocks glistened in the background; succumbing to a rainbow of oily hues, a shower of sandy sunbeams, and a cloud of polychrome dust.
The morning air was dabbed with the odours of trampled ferns and dewy ash.
Sunny was able to digest this scene, because no-one had voiced a reply. He was almost certain that his kinfolk had things to say. They might have had more than one thing to say. Those things might have contradicted each other. They might have made for a compelling case. But Sunny could not know for sure, because the clan had been struck by a collective bout of muteness.
